5 Tips for Improving CRO with Content Marketing

CRO, or Conversion Rate Optimisation, is an essential marketing discipline that helps businesses grow their business. 

Essentially, it focuses on creating a positive user experience that, in turn, would increase conversions and ultimately boost your return on investment (ROI). 

While many factors impact CRO, one that marketers often talk about is content marketing. Creating authoritative content that increases the number of visits to your site can significantly impact your credibility, authority, and SEO rankings. 

Now, you are wondering, how can I improve my content to provide an actionable path for all of the visitors to convert?

The good news is that there are plenty of ways you can improve your CRO, and we are here to share the five best tips on how to do that. 

1. Define Your Content KPIs

Before you start creating your content, you need to be clear about its purpose and what goal you are trying to achieve. This is where KPIs can play a major role. 

The KPIs (key performance indicators) help you determine which pieces of content need more effort and encourage you to keep track of every article you publish and promote. 

Here are a few critical KPIs you should have in mind when it comes to increasing your CRO:

• Average views of your blog posts and their bounce rate
• The number of shares and social media followers you reach with your posts 
• The level of engagement your content has generated — this includes comments, likes, and shares 
• The number of visitors who decided to subscribe to your newsletter/emails
• All the off-page activities and backlinks created on your guest posts 
• The retention rate on your blog posts and other content as well 

If you focus on measuring the impact your content makes on your marketing progress, you can make significant improvements to your CRO and create new models that will help you optimize your site for conversions. 

If you are unsure what KPIs you need to focus on, you can always reach out to a custom web design company to help you with your marketing efforts and clearly define your objectives. 

2. Leverage User-Generated Content 

Apart from creating authoritative and useful content that will guide your visitors in their customer journey and encourage them to find out more, you can use various forms of user-generated content to boost your CRO. These include testimonials, reviews, and comments sections. 

Even if a user decides to visit your website, they may not choose to buy your product because they do not have enough proof that your product stands out from the rest. 

Reviews and other user content can help a lot because they give your visitors enough information about your product and may influence whether a user will decide to buy your product or move to one of your competitors. 

And, how do you find these reviews? You can simply ask for users' feedback by email, or you can ask them to complete a satisfaction form on your website. 

This will not only give you enough content which might spark your visitors' interest, but it can also give you enough information so that you can improve your website performance and content quality. 

Another way to motivate your users to give feedback is by adding a comment section on your website and underneath each blog. This might stir up a discussion and immediately increase engagement on your website. 

Whatever you do, keep in mind that user-generated content can help you increase your conversion rates by 161%. 

3. Focus on Visual Content 

If producing blog posts is not your cup of tea, you can share stories about your product or services through videos. 

Videos have become one of the most engaging pieces of content as they provide the necessary information that is visually appealing, so it sticks into people's memory longer. 

On top of this, you need to grab people's attention in the first 5 seconds and then keep them engaged. And the easiest way to do so is through video marketing. 

Besides videos, you can use various visual content such as infographics, GIFs, images, and different animations. 

Here are a few tips on how to create visually appealing content that will convert more easily: 

• Use high-quality clear pictures 
• Use larger pictures so that your users can zoom in and see the details 
• Capture your product from different angles 
• Tell a background story 
• Showcase your product in use or with some context 
• Use 360-degree rotating pictures to demonstrate your product 
• Create 3D images of your products 
• Use augmented reality to make your product stand out 

You can do many things to make your visitors want to buy a product and even recommend it to their friends and colleagues. Making your visuals appealing is an essential step in this process. 

Of course, to see which technique performs the best, you can always do A/B testing. 

4. Create Attractive Headlines 

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If you want your readers to get interested in what you have to say, you need to grab their attention right from the start and then make them want to read and learn more about what you have to say. One way to do this is through an engaging headline. 

A headline is a phrase or a bold statement that sparks interest with your readers, addresses their biggest concerns, and motivates them to go to the site to read the solution to the problem they are facing. 

A good headline should have the right message, keywords, and the right tone of voice, as this will determine whether your readers will read your articles or simply drift away and find some other that answers their needs and requirements. 

According to QuickSprout, the ideal headline formula looks something like this:

Number or Trigger Word + Adjective + Keywords + Promise

Of course, you can always experiment with a headline and use various trigger words or change the order of words to see which one works for you. 

Also, headlines should be optimized, but sometimes using a keyword in a headline is a challenge as it does not help you convey the right message. 

Bottom line, don't rush it and try to make the best out of your headline. 

Here are a few critical stats you need to keep in mind when writing your headline:

• A good headline can improve traffic by 500% 
• Headlines with numbers can increase social engagement and shares by 73%
• Almost 8 out of 10 people will only read the headline and won't even bother reading your article if the headline does not spark their interest 

And here are a few quick tips on how you can improve your headline:

• Use a maximum of eight words in your headline — keep them short and effective
• Use a colon more often
• Focus on odd numbers 

5. Optimize your most engaging posts

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Blog posts are your main asset when it comes to bridging the gap between products and consumers. 

If a person who starts reading your blog does not have reason enough to continue reading it, it means that your blog is not engaging enough or does not provide the crucial answer to your readers' concerns. 

There are, of course, blog posts that perform much better than others, and these are usually called compounding posts. 

Compounding posts are the ones that continue to generate new traffic constantly, even long after they are published. And, the fantastic thing is that this kind of content is responsible for 38% of all website traffic. 

This is why you need to optimize these blogs for the best user experience. You can, for instance, add an opt-in email form, optimize performance issues such as mobile responsiveness or loading times. 

There is a wide range of small tweaks you can do to improve the quality of your compounding content and allow your visitors to have several opportunities to interact with your content. You only need to take the first step. 

Leverage Your Content to Bring your CRO to a Whole New Level 

Conversion rate optimization can be a real challenge, but it can have a massive impact on your web traffic if done right. 

If you are not certain you have enough experience or knowledge to implement it, you can always get some help from trusted digital marketing companies when creating your content marketing strategy.

If you follow these tips and implement them in your content strategy, you will undoubtedly see improvements that will help you achieve your ultimate goals and improve ROI in the long run.

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